Chapter Five

Speare hated the smell of closed up spaces. It didn’t matter if it was a dwelling place, a store or in this case a hyper classified government bunker for a team of supra’s doing black ops, they all broke down to the old man smell mixed with heavy amounts of dust, and the same thick layers of cobwebs.

This one also looked like it had been an extra set on Saving Private Ryan. Slick was jumpy with her hand resting on her glocs as they moved their way through what was the control room. John fumbled with a control panel cover to get at wiring. Whatever had gone down here had also ended with the government not paying the power bill. He muttered under his breath about jump starting the power back up. Sparks, obviously in the dark illuminated by smart phone light John didn’t match the right colours.

Creaks. Skittering sounds. Speare knew it wouldn’t be rats, Alberta had a rat patrol that for the most part kept the province rat free, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t mice, voles, gophers, badgers or worse, skunks—not enough lemon juice in the world for the last one.

The sound of a vacuum wooshing. “How damn! Not bad for a colour blind mayor.” John MacCurtis exclaimed.

Colour blind? Speare shook his head as what was dubbed the control room came alive with light, the monitors were smashed, wires were dangling and sparking, one heck of a fire hazard is what this bunker had become. Not to mention dust bunny.

“What are you hoping to find boss man, this place has been scrubbed.” Slick said.

Speare tuned out the chit chat between boss and employee, as he noted there was a door slightly askew in the corner of 1100 square foot room. But that was just a guess off the top of his head as he moved to it. With all the stainless steel looking like something out of Star Trek, and the Tesla coils he was sure Minion from Megamind would state were from a dealer in Switzerland…

A wooden closet door. It was stuck. Speare pulled on the door knob and the whole door came ff the hinges, a thud before he could brace himself dust and cleaning supplies, mops, and brooms falling out and then a solid 200 lbs of dead weight slammed into his chest and knocked him to the ground.

Dead skin flaked off across Speare’s bald had and caught in his stubble as the body’s head bounced off his. Two bullets landed square into the now empty closet, Slick was in a squawt with both guns drawn and fired.

MacCurtis leapt over broken furniture and moved the corner. He heaved the body off of Speare and let out a gasp.

“Oh shit.”

Speare took a moment to regain his senses and brush the dead skin and body dust off as he slowly rose up and looked at what had hit him. It was a male, more mummified than decomposed, let appeared as if it had some of the skin flayed from his back. His face was deformed.

“A guard?”

“Good guess Speare, but no. After the last stand here when I exorcised the entity from me, the government came through, collected the dead, took other causalities to the hospitals and debriefed the living. The bunker was sealed and the program closed.” MacCurtis stated.

“So this body came in after sealing?” Speare asked.

Slick holstered her weapons like a gunfighter out of an American western Dime Novel and walked over to where the body was found. “Know this Mummy boss?”

John looked at the mummified scarred face.

“Reesa, I will always love you.” Daemon said stealing a quick kiss before tearing out into the desert in a dune buggy. The girl laughed as Malcolm, the large albino, fired the gun from the top, she slightly used her telepathy to push people’s mind to confusion.

Daemon, her love, met at the house ran by MacCurtis. He had been saved from a fire that his addict mother could not be, he still bore the scars. But the flames also gave him something else that night.

A large fence door loomed, that crackle in the corner of his good right eye.

A bolt of lightning and outwards to freedom from the camp.

John knelt down, crossed himself, it had been years since he had attended a Mass, but it seemed appropriate to begin his own reconciliation work with this piece with his past. He then placed his thumb on the dead boy’s forehead, and drew a cross on his forehead, his lips, and the chest where the heart would be.

Speare watched the scene. The religiosity of it all, MacCurtis was seeking redemption in this process, it was why he had sent the Bionic Knight away. But how does one claim redemption from a time when they were possessed by an extraterrestrial entity? His body, possibly his mind, but did he have culpability for actions?

A group of adolescents to young adults used for essentially suicide missions by his own government. Somehow they survived, when one didn’t it fell apart. This bunker was destroyed during MacCurtis’ exorcism, but after sealing the bunker someone killed this mummy and left them here as a message.

“John, who is it?” Speare asked.

John looked at this detective who had been brought into some of the darkest parts of his soul. Pieces he never wanted to think about, parts he wanted to remain dead. A detective that was friends with one of the kids, the Martyrs. Yet they had survived and moved beyond what Thor had attempted to do.

“His name is Daemon, no one knew his last name. Like all the Martyrs he was found in the system, and brought to the house to be trained and used. He was alive at exorcism, and after. He was Reesa’s boyfriend.” MacCurtis said. Speare was not sure if that was a tear of sorrow or just the build-up of dust.

“So then the next obvious question—how the hell did he wind up dead in here after it was sealed?”

“By Jove Slick I do believe we will make a detective out of your thugness yet.” Speare retorted.

The air felt like it crackled around them. Another mysterious body, thunder rumbled over her. Speare looked at John, “who exorcised Thor from you?”